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🎙️ EPISODE 155: 02.03.19
The strange origin story of Mulholland Drive somehow eluded me for years. I only found out that this movie, Lynch’s ninth, released one month after 9/11, was literally developed and shot with the intention to be a TV pilot for ABC. I found this out from the book, Room to Dream, by the way: the half autobiography/half biography of Lynch’s life, which came out last year that I highly recommend. Only when it was clear that it wouldn’t work for television did Lynch decide to re-cut and film additional footage to release as a feature. Though this was common knowledge, I managed to watch this many times over the years with no idea. When I rewatched it again recently with this information, I couldn’t help but try to pick out what was filmed when in the timeline, and if I could see any inconsistencies… a hellish way to watch a picture. I don’t recommend it. But I digress... |
From
Blue Velvet on, each one of David Lynch’s films (outside of
The Straight Story) has had a longer running time. At close to 2½ hours, 2001’s
Mulholland Drive was his longest to date by a decent margin. It’s something of a misnomer that Lynch’s films meander, as people mistake deliberateness for slowness or frivolity.
Mulholland is filled with detours, inhabiting the film like micro movies in their own right. This also continues the loose Los Angeles trilogy (after
Lost Highway and concluding with
Inland Empire), which, at their heart, are films about coming to grips with who you really are. This might be the most direct lampooning of the film industry itself, but all three deal with being someone who you’re really not.
Lynch has repeatedly stated his admiration for the 1950 film noir classic
Sunset Blvd., another film about the film industry. In some respects, the naïveté of Naomi Watts’s Betty is the counterpoint to Norma Desmond. In
Mulholland Drive, her character says, “I’d rather be known as a great actress than a movie star. But, you know, sometimes people end up being both.” Whereas, Norma Desmond portrayed by Gloria Swanson, has already reckoned with the true fate: “No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.”
The arc of the characters (plural) Betty and Diane, and the power of Naomi Watts’s performance as them both, is behind the wheel on
Mulholland Drive. I found it odd that she took second billing in the opening credit crawl to co-star Justin Theroux. Was this because she was unknown to the masses at the time, or perhaps another piece of the puzzle to this movie’s greater themes?
Mulholland Drive touches all the bases. At times bleak and bizarre. Sometimes bright and hopeful. In many ways, it’s modeled after the next film on our countdown, as it can almost be read as two separate entities: converging, crossing and meeting together again? Well…
Listen to my 90-minute feature podcast: RANKING DAVID LYNCH.
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